The Oklahoma Substandard is doing well.
Yesterday, The Guardian launched a new web project called The Counted. Its goal is "to count the number of people killed by police and other law enforcement agencies in the United States throughout 2015, to monitor their demographics, and to tell the stories of how they died."
Overall, it's an ambitious project for the British newspaper. If only we had our own federal government to track such things. That sure would be nice.
Anyway, the early results are already in. Guess who's jumped into the lead and claimed the number one spot...
Yeah, this isn't surprising. If you put together a list of US states that rank near the top of most negative US states rankings, Oklahoma and Mississippi would battle it out for number one. I bet we would win thanks to the commitment of our overzealous law enforcement.
With the release of this data, Oklahoma is now...
• #1 in the country, per capita, in people killed by law enforcement...
• #2 in the country, per capita, in state sanctioned executions...
• #3 in the country, per capita, in incarceration rate...
That's absolutely insane. If you were to read those numbers aloud, someone would think you're describing a police state from a young adult dystopian future novel... not a report about the place our local media and politicians glowingly dub "The Heartland."
Seriously, what a joke. If you love sad irony and hypocrisy, move to Oklahoma. Voters here love freedom and personal liberty... as long as they're not dead or in jail.
